#4 Interview with Joo Kim

Guest: Joo Kim
Interviewer: Chris
Recording Date: December 11, 2007
Length: 52 minutes

Joo Kim is a 24 year-old Korean American from Palisades Park, New Jersey. Although he’d only been living in Korea for 7 months at the time of the interview, we thought it would be interesting to hear from someone of his perspective: Joo is the first male, first fluent Korean-speaker and first member of the US Army to be interviewed by Canaries in the Motherland. In this interview we discuss his family’s move to America, initially to a white suburb and eventually to a high-density Korean neighborhood, obtaining US citizenship at the age of 21, and almost haphazardly entering the US military to come to Korea.

Oh yeah, Joo and Chris also went to college together. Above, Joo is pictured with a muskrat on his head.

Click here to listen.

#3 Interview with Jessica Conte

Guest: Jessica Conte
Interviewer: Chris
Recording Date: November 15, 2007
Length: 52 minutes

Jessica Conte is a half-Korean, half-Italian American mostly from Seattle, Washington, although she also grew up partly on Yongsan Garrison, a military base in central Seoul, and in Alabama. In this interview we discuss Jessica’s experiences growing up in an eclectic mix of American enclaves, her time studying abroad in Mexico learning Spanish and her move to Korea with her younger brother. Jessica sheds some light on her experiences being interpreted ethnically in three countries, learning Korean without going to school, the support she’s received from Korean friends, and Koreans’ reactions to her ethnicity, her teaching and her tattoos. At the time of the interview, Jessica had been living in Korea for a little over a year.

Above, Jessica is pictured with her brother, Matt … in what appears to be an alley … in Insa-dong.

Click here to listen.

Be forewarned: during a few minutes of part three of the interview the sound system in the cafe was going crazy. Either the speakers were broken or the CD was skipping, but the coming and going and popping of the background noise is pretty annoying.